


To Go Find the Boy

by ilyena_sylph, Merfilly



Series: Reckoning [5]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebellion Era - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Family Reunions, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-19
Updated: 2016-11-19
Packaged: 2018-08-31 22:55:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8597005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilyena_sylph/pseuds/ilyena_sylph, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: The journey on Tatooine turns toward the boy in the visions. Can Reckoning truly cope with being that near the place where Anakin's Fall truly began? And what will the boy's identity do to him?





	

Luke Skywalker was staring up the vane of a vaporator, trying to figure out the best way to tackle the maintenance it needed… in theory. In truth, he was daydreaming, thinking of places far away with water and mountains that called to him. He sighed for the fifth time, and secured his climbing belt… only to stop as the sound of a speeder came to his ears. He abandoned the belt to pick up his rifle instead… just in case. One never knew, and there had been reports of revolts in the settlements and cities.

Reckoning had opted for the speeder for a number of reasons -- one of which was that it meant that only one of the Noghri would insist on going along -- and he piloted it easily out of Anchorhead and up so very, very close to the place his mother had lived out the last of her days in. They were almost there, when a flash of alertness through the Force caught his attention and he looked towards one of the vaporators, head snapped up and around. Light desert clothes and a rifle held in easy hands were all he could immediately make out... but something sang to him from the slim form. 

Luke made out the speeder, three individuals he could make out at the limit of his vision, and he did not wish to be so suspicious as to sight through the rifle to see more. He felt odd, like he was standing on a path with two options, not knowing which one he would take. It didn't make much sense to him but his heart felt lighter than it had in some time.

Ahsoka, wearing a light cloak to mask her lekku on this world that had badly treated so many Twi'lek, was keeping her montrals alert for new sounds, but nothing was threatening at this point. She saw a slender form ahead, and wondered if it was the boy of Reckoning's dreams. She glanced at Sherrov, the Noghri that had won the right to accompany them, and was reassured that no further threat could be scented on the wind. 

Reckoning drove on, turning the speeder slightly so that he approached the vaporator rather than the dwelling -- it was the boy they were here for, not his past or his mother's stepchild. He stopped it a polite distance away, looked again at the boy... and felt his heart try to stop. 

He knew that face from a thousand mirrors of his memory, knew those eyes, and the boy's age -- the world reeled around him, and he was too stunned, too confused, to even be angry. 

Ahsoka's hand stole to his forearm, while her eyes riveted on the face of the boy. She recalled, dimly, that Skyguy's hair had been lighter when he'd been younger. She'd seen him, sometimes, in the Temple like that. But the lines of the face and eyes? Those she knew too well, having seen them closely for a good bit of three very formative years. 

Someone had stolen Skyguy's child from him, all knowledge of the boy, and hidden him on the worst planet in the galaxy. It was very hard for Ahsoka not to be angry, and she was thankful Rex was in town with the other Noghri and their ship. Rex's sensibilities would have sent his temper into the suns, the moment he realized this was Anakin Skywalker's child of the flesh.

That meant…

"She was still alive, _ori'vod_ ," Ahsoka said softly. "He lied to you, about killing her."

"Don't, _ner'vod_ ," Reckoning answered quietly, "I don't want to frighten him. I can't think about that. Not yet." 

If he thought about that the boy would feel his response, and that could not happen, not when the boy knew him not at all. He took a careful breath, and turned his head towards the boy in question. "Hello," he called across the space between them, projecting a little with the vocalizer, adding a passive 'come and speak' brush with the Force. Not an override of his will, but an entreaty. 

~Sorry,~ Ahsoka ghosted over his mind… alongside the pride she felt in her soul for his restraint and knowing his limits. She waited patiently, senses as focused outward as she could get them, intent on not letting anything wreck this now.

Not when this was Skyguy's flesh and blood.

Sherrov watched, knowing his people's savior was very upset, that the little sister was also upset, and it had to do with the young human with the rifle. He paid close attention, especially when the boy moved to come to them.

Luke took it as a good sign that the speeder had stopped at a distance, and wondered if they were meaning to do business with his uncle. He kept the rifle in his hands, but far more casually as he closed the gap, so he could see them more clearly. 

Armor meant bounty hunter, likely, which set his nerves back to high alert, while both of the other beings didn't hit his awareness as human, though both were sensibly cloaked against the winds and sand.

"What can I do for you, strangers?" Luke asked warily.

"We are strangers," Reckoning admitted, "but perhaps not for long. I am called Reckoning. This is Ahsoka, and my other companion is Sherrov. You will find this difficult to believe, I expect, but we are here because of you, though I know not even your name." 

Sherrov was smelling the air, and he began to glimpse why his lord was so upset. The scent in the air said 'clan', yet there had never been a mention of children of their savior.

Ahsoka kept her own mouth shut, waiting to see how this went. So far, Reckoning seemed to be handling it quite well on his own. She took in the practical clothing, the shaggy hair, noted that the face didn't seem wasted by dehydration or malnutrition. The boy looked to be in good health, actually, and the Force was all but singing to her from him, raw and uncontained.

Luke cocked his head to the side, looking at the speaker intently. "My name's Luke. Luke Skywalker. Why would I be why you were here, when you didn't even know that?"

Skywalker. The boy carried his mother's name. That wrapped a fist around his throat, and for a moment he could not entirely speak. "Luke," he said, quietly. It was a good name, as it went, he thought. "...have you ever had a dream that suddenly came true? Or known something there was no way you could have?" 

Luke's open face went a little more guarded, and Ahsoka noticed it. The boy was wary, for all he was curious, but to survive this far out took skill and guts, they said.

"Maybe? I don't know. People say I'm lucky, with good instincts." 

Reckoning smiled behind the mask, his eyes wanting to warm, as he approved of the boy's wary response. "That is often said, and... in a sense, it is entirely true. But luck and instincts are not all of it. You are gifted." 

He stretched out his will, and the nearest of the rocks lifted an easy meter. "It calls, to those with the ability to listen." 

Luke's eyes went wide. "How did you do that?" He wanted to back away, even as he wanted to know more, his curiosity at odds with his trained survival skills.

Ahsoka bit at her lip hard; the idea that even the concept of using the Force was dying out in the galaxy left her soul hurting desperately. 

"I used the Force," Reckoning replied, wanting to wring Owen's neck for having left Luke _this_ vulnerable, and he put the rock back down where it had been. "As you could -- more than unconsciously -- if you were taught. 

"Did you not know it is in your blood?" 

Luke's face scrunched up, and Ahsoka wanted to smile, because that was Skyguy-with-a-puzzle if she ever saw it!

"Why would it be?" Luke asked, unaware of the potential harm of that question. "You're talking about things that died out with that old mystic order, aren't you?"

"...you carry his name," Reckoning said, very low and very quiet, holding onto his calm half-desperately, opening his mind to Ahsoka's touch, "and have _no idea_... oh, what a Force-damned mess **this** is." 

Ahsoka wrapped herself around Reckoning's mind with all of her own patience and love… and consternation at this entire idea.

"Maybe you have the wrong person?" Luke said helpfully. "My father was a navigator on a space freighter--"

"Like _haran_ he was!" Ahsoka spit out at that, letting her outward patience fray, to give Reckoning the time he probably needed. Anakin Skywalker might be a person he would never be again, but there was still a lot of emotion tied up in some of his doings. "Sorry, kid, but I can't stand by and let you believe a lie of the man that taught me half of what I know about the Force.

"Anakin Skywalker was a Jedi Knight, my teacher, and one hell of a pilot!"

Reckoning knew exactly what she was doing and why, and he brushed gratitude across her mind as he attempted to deal rationally with the idea that this child of his Angel's had been lied to as much as he had been, rather than sink into the ice and endless black of his rage. 

He let her remain the one speaking, watching Luke's startled, baffled face. 

"I... are you -- I can't be the only 'Skywalker' in the galaxy, ma'am, why are you so sure the 'Anakin Skywalker' that was my father is the one you knew?" 

"The Force doesn't make mistakes like that, Luke," Ahsoka said, gentling her tone. "It guided us here to find you, before your father's enemies can find you instead. Or mine," she conceded, given that Maul… well, it was personal all around on that one. "The last thing I want is harm to come to a son of my master's, or those he calls family."

Luke looked alarmed at the idea of harm for his aunt or uncle. "I don't know. Why would my uncle lie to me?"

"Probably," Reckoning said, deliberately holding his voice to firmly quiet, "in an attempt to keep you safe. Why he didn't change your _name_ , though, given how much you look like your father, **that** is beyond my... comprehension." 

He had to make the quiet joke, or he was going to lose his temper and kill the other man that had loved his mother as soon as he laid eyes on him. 

Luke's jaw firmed, a flash in his eyes, at the entire concept of his name being anything else. Ahsoka saw it, saw a memory that matched it so well, and shook her head. This was Skyguy's kid… and probably doubly stubborn for being the Senator's kid too.

"He never says much about my dad, but he tells me I'm like my grandmother, and that's why he never adopted me to give me his name," Luke defended. 

...all right. He might decide to accept that. "He thinks highly of you, then, if he would say that," Reckoning said, oddly pleased at the sharp flare of stubborn tenacity in the eyes of this child of his blood. 

Luke settled back a little, and Ahsoka decided the Senator's influence was a good thing; Skyguy had never calmed that quickly from his moods.

"Why come find me now?" Luke demanded. "If you were his student, why wait so long?"

"Because I didn't know," Ahsoka answered evenly. "I had a falling out with the Jedi Order, and wasn't with your father when everything ended for them," she made herself say, even as it hurt in her chest all over again, for that mistake. "As to now, the Force showed Reckoning where we needed to be. Possibly because, with the Emperor dead, Force users are going to be moving around a lot more, and that means young ones will be vulnerable to those looking to found their own cults."

Reckoning shifted his weight to look towards Ahsoka at that last... but it _was_ a valid point. If the other remnants of Force traditions started stirring around, it would go ill for a child of Skywalker's. "Indeed. It is not a good answer," he added, "but it is all there is. We did not know you existed to **be** found." 

"Oh." Luke considered that, his heart telling him that these two people were speaking truth to him. He then looked back to the house. "So, what now?" he asked.

"As you're not of age, I negotiate with your family, and you, to see about you coming with us to learn the Force," Ahsoka told him. "I don't want innocent people in the way of some of those people I have clashed with in the past."

"Care to ride up with us?" Reckoning offered, almost entirely certain that Luke would take him up on it. Nobody walked when they could catch a ride, not on this planet. It was too damned hot for that. 

"Yeah, let me get my tool--" Luke's words cut off as Ahsoka gathered up the box of tools and floated them down to Luke's hand, as he shouldered the rifle. "Thanks?"

"Nothing to it," Ahsoka said with a smile, before she climbed to the back of the speeder, offering the front to Luke. Sherrov did not protest; the boy should be near their lord.

Reckoning waited for him to settle in, and then took the speeder up the rest of the way, parking it near the garage that had so many memories, firmly ignoring all of them. Where, he wondered for the first time in his existence, was Threepio?

It did not matter, he told himself in the next moment. That was gone. He had parked in the cast shade -- what little of it there was -- and he did not wish to see Owen, so unless Ahsoka insisted, he was going to remain here. 

And not walk over to the small standing stone. Though there were two, now. 

"Show me in, Luke?" Ahsoka said. "Reckoning would prefer not to startle your kin, and Sherrov is shy."

The Noghri wondered at the words-that-were-not-true, but she often had a reason for being less than obvious.

"Okay," Luke agreed, and hopped out, offering her a hand out the same way he would for his aunt. "It's this way." 

She accepted the help, wrapping a Force hug around her partner, and followed Luke inside to begin negotiations.

+++

Ahsoka considered herself a master of her emotions at the ripe old age of thirty-two years. She needed every bit of it to keep Reckoning from learning what she had in the course of convincing the Lars family to let Luke come with her. Aside from a very swiftly tamped down moment of shock, she kept the way Luke had come to Tatooine carefully hidden, and did not even give away that much when Owen said he'd refused the 'old man' a chance to train the boy just a few years prior.

In the end, she won out; the kindly couple did not want to face the kind of enemies a famous Jedi could bring, let alone a leader of the Rebellion. She came back to the speeder, giving Luke the time he needed to pack up, having told him that leaving a trail by telling his friends goodbye would only open them up to being targets. He was going to pack what he had to have, and join them.

She hoped it was quickly enough, or that Kenobi had left the planet already, because if not… she feared for a return of Vader.

He had felt her shock, felt her tamp it down away from him, and he watched her sharply as she came to them. "Were you successful?" he asked, low. He was certain that she had, but hearing it was somehow important. 

"Yes. He's packing up now, and will be coming with us," Ahsoka said, forcing herself to not scan the horizon with her eyes. She kept her montrals outward-focused though, worried beyond belief, and fighting to keep it contained to her skin.

"You're worried," he told her, to see what answer she would give, but part of him was savagely pleased at the idea that the boy would come with them. That -- however it had happened -- he would know the child Skywalker and Padmé had been so excited for. 

"Yes," she said, not denying it once called on it. "I'd rather talk to you about that in the ship, on our way home with him, though," she told him, focusing her gaze on him. "Reckoning, you did wonderfully with him earlier. If I had had any idea… I would not have stopped until I found the child."

"Mmm. All right. I trust that you have your reasons," he told her, accepting her decision, before his mouth curled slightly. "Ahsoka... of that I had no doubt. If Vader had known... well. I am grateful he did not. Her shade needs no more reasons to be angry with me. As to doing well with him... it took little." 

She could not help but glow with pride at his appraisal of what her actions would have been. He was not her Master, never could be after all he had been through, but he accepted her as important to his life. That he did not press… she was relieved. He did not need to know until they were well away.

If only the Force would continue to protect them from an ugly scene, this might all go happily.


End file.
